Voter participation among physicians was 14 percentage points lower than that of the general population between 2006 and 2018, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Results showed 37 percent of eligible physicians voted in elections over this time period compared to 51 percent of the general population.
Researchers analyzed voter participation, voter registration and voter turnout from over 100,000 physicians across three states with the largest number of physicians: California, New York and Texas. They compared this with general population voting data.
About half of physicians eligible to vote were not registered, according to the study.
The reasons for these findings are unclear, but study authors said that "low participation may be because of the fear of seeming political while practicing medicine, in addition to other administrative and psychological barriers."